The Baal Shem Tov, or Besht —  the founder of Chasidism — 
met the soul of the Messiah during an ascent to heaven. 
The Besht asked him, "When will the Master come?" 
The Messiah answered, "When your wellsprings break forth to the outside!" 
(from a letter written by the Besht to his brother-in-law about one of his soul ascents) 


 
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A Prayer for the Earth – Hebrew and English


This prayer is focused on global climate disruption (aka "global warming"), healing the skies, and the original blessing of creation. It is partly based on P'ri Eitz Hadar (the first published Tu Bish'vat seder), and on the Sefardi liturgy for Sukkot. It can be used after the Torah service every Shabbat, after the prayer for the government or Israel. It could also be used many other times, e.g. after the counting of the omer or on Lag B'Omer. The liturgy is closely based upon the sun-blessing liturgy we used April 8th 2009. The PDF includes Hebrew with vowels, two copies per page. Notes follow the English text below.

Elohei Haruchot, God of all spirit, all directions, all winds
You have placed in our hands power
unlike any since the world began
to overturn the orders of creation.

Please God, give us wisdom and skillful hands to heal
the Skies and the Earth from our sins;
Y'kum purkan lish'maya 'May salvation arise for the heavens'.
that the blessings of the sun flow over us
for life and not for death, for blessing and not for curse,
as it says, 'I will open for you the expanses of the Heavens
and will empty out for you a blessing beyond what is enough
and Earth's fruit will not be destroyed because of you.'

God full of compassion, remember Your covenant with all life,
the covenant of the waters of Noah.
Spread a Sukkah of compassion and peace
over us, over all Life's species;
Surround all our relations, with Shekhinah's radiance;
Water them with Your river of delights in all of their habitats.
Then 'the bow will appear in the cloud',
joyful and beautified with its colors,
and the Tree of Life will return to its original strength,
so that we and our descendants may merit to live
many days on Earth, like days of the Skies over the Land.
Blessed be the Life of the worlds!

~~~~~ Text notes for the curious:~~~~~

See the longer version of this liturgy for more notes and interpretations.

"Elohei Haruchot" – Numbers 27:16

"skillful hands" – Psalms 78:72

"Y'kum purkan lish'maya" – the traditional blessing for the congregation begins "y'kum purkan min shamaya", may salvation arise from the Heavens.

"I will open for you expanses..." – Malakhi 3:10-11; "expanses", arubot, is used to describe the release of the flood waters in the Noah story; in Malakhi it's meaning is reversed from destruction to abundance.

"destroyed because of you" – usu. interpreted to mean "your produce will not be destroyed", but new times reveal new meanings.

"covenant of the waters of Noah" – the covenant was not made with humans first, but rather with the land and with all the creatures, Genesis 9:9-12


"Spread a Sukkah over us" – a refrain found many places, but especially in the Sefardi liturgy for Ushpizin, where it is echoed several times.

"all our relations" – a Native American epithet meaning all species of life and all creatures, which as we know from Spirit and from science are truly our relations.

"Shekhinah's radiance" – what the righteous enjoy in the coming world, but also in the Sefardi Ushpizin something we pray for in the here and now.

"Water them with Your river of delights" – Psalms 36:8

"the bow will appear in the cloud" – v'nir'atah hkeshet be'anan, from Genesis 9:14, quoted by P'ri Eitz Hadar as a sign of the restoration of original blessing. (Note however that for much of Kabbalah, the rainbow has the opposite meaning, that God needed to be reminded, k'v'yakhol, not to destroy the Earth.) The grammatical form is past tense with the Biblical vav hahipukh, which makes it future tense.

"joyful and beautified" -- also from P'ri Eitz Hadar, its referent in the original context is ambiguous, syntactically fitting with the rainbow but grammatically (by gender) with "the whole". Either way, it's a good thing.

"Tree of Life" – in Kabbalah, the sefirot; in ecology and evolution, the process of unfolding and becoming which makes all living things our relations, a process whose diversity is overwhelming and wondrous.

"will return to its original strength" – a quote from P'ri Eitz Hadar, which reads "hakol the Whole will return to its original strength". Tree of Life is another epithet for all the Sefirot, which "hakol" also stands for. This is one of the most deeply ecological sentiments I have ever encountered in any pre-modern text (i.e., before ecology was even a concept).

"like days of the Skies over the Land" -- Deuteronomy 11:21, a more concrete translation of "like the days of the Heavens over the Earth".


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